


The Stray Dogs Squad

by Aly_H



Series: Whispered Truths [1]
Category: Star Wars Legends: The Old Republic
Genre: Friendship, Gen, Mandalorian character, Multi, One-shots but linked, Rating is for potential future chapters, Training Days, no relationships planned yet, pre-game
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-07-07
Updated: 2017-09-03
Packaged: 2018-11-28 22:53:36
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,402
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11427939
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Aly_H/pseuds/Aly_H
Summary: The story of  how two Imperial Intelligence cadets - Aydin Olasee and Atin Col - end up meeting for the first time.





	1. Red & Green

The other recruits cleared out, leaving the figure on the ground. Four strong military type guys against one wasn’t really a fair fight. She was curious who had managed to offend enough people on the _first_ night to end up the target of their wrath.

The figure on the ground shifted slowly, careful of bruised ribs and potential broken bones to prop himself against the wall, bright red eyes narrowing as he spotted her approach.

The eyes were framed with diamond-like tattoos, a triangle below each eye, and a more complicated design on his forehead. His skin the bright green with yellow undertones. A Mirialan in the grey-and-black uniform of a cadet, his badge indicating that he was training as an Imperial Intelligence operative. Squad assignment Black Dogs.

“You here to get your shot in?” not the clipped Kaasi accent, instead it was Outer Rim. If she’d had to guess it was probably Rishi but with a bit of influence from other parts of neutral space.

“Was actually just seeing if you were still alive, _di’kut_ ,” she snorted, lowering herself to sit on her haunches at eye-level with the injured man.

His skin already taking a brown-orange tone where he was bruised. An older bruise, nearly completely healed, showed a black eye. And she could see that his hands still had the faint lines of recently repaired injuries. Hands were easy to work over during torture – a lot of nerve endings and people wanted to keep the use of them.

A brow over the crimson-bright eyes arched, “Well…I probably deserve that,” he admitted wryly. “So, you’re a stray mutt too?”

“So everyone knows that Black Dog Squad’s the ‘misfits’ already,” she said, edging closer carefully, keeping an eye on the guy’s reactions. He was older than her, nineteen to her seventeen if he had to guess (though she’d never known a Mirialan in person so she wasn’t _certain_ ).

“Bottom of the food chain,” he laughed and winced - the sound choking into a sharp hiss. “They rebroke my rib, I think.”

“C’mon, I’ll get you to the med center, the droid can patch you back up,” she said, moving to position herself to help her injured squad mate to his feet and support his weight. Force damn him – he was tall. An inch or two over six foot put him well above her own five-two.

The droid at the center _tsked_ as they came in.

“Cadet Olasee, you were informed fighting was completely prohibited, were you not?” it asked in a tone that managed to somehow be both disapproving and monotone as it whirled around, gathering supplies.

“Hey now, I _didn’t_ fight,” he grumbled as the droid drew the privacy curtain closed and got to work. “I fell.”

 _With help into_ fists _several times,_ the red haired Zabrak crossed her arms as she stood by the door waiting for her squad mate. They’d already taken exception to him, she had a lower profile, was Imperial raised and probably less likely to say something smart that riled the human cadets into violence.

It was twenty minutes later that he came around the curtain, buttoning his dirty uniform back up and froze seeing her.

“I wanted to be sure you got back to the barracks without further incident,” she replied to the silent surprise. “Classes don’t start until tomorrow but regulation is that cadets are supposed to be paired. It seemed like a good habit to get into.”

He tilted his head to the side and then gave an easy shrug, a flirty grin sliding into place, although the slight tenseness in his posture suggested he was far less relaxed about her presence than he wanted to give off, “Alright, Red, that’s fine by me.”

“My name’s not ‘Red’,” she sighed.

If he was going to give her a nickname, it could at least be something less obvious _that_. Her bright red hair was the first feature noticed about her usually – followed by comments about her horns, eyes and tattoos in that order. She was a pale Zabrak rather than the red-variety that was more usual in Imperial space, but that would be an advantage when it came to infiltrating the Republic.

“Well then – what _do_ I call you?”

“Cadet Col when we’re on duty, ‘Atin’ is my first name though.”

“Mmh. I’m Aydin, I guess.”

“New name?”

“Appropriate for a new life,” he replied. “How could you tell?”

“You don’t respond to ‘Olasee’ very quickly, and you don’t say ‘Aydin’ like it belongs to you either. Plus there’s a story when you go from torture in an imperial prison –Sith, probably – to being a cadet here.”

“I could just be slow.”

“You’d still be in prison – or dead – if that were true. You impressed someone,” she flashed him a grin as they reached the smallest, dingiest of the squad barracks. “And here we are.”

Someone had helpfully crossed out the sign on the door which labeled their Squad number and painted over in red ‘Stray Dogs’. It was going to be a long two years if they couldn’t earn the respect of the other training units.

“Goodnight, Red,” he grinned down at her noticing where her gaze was.

“Welcome to the Empire, _Kurshi_ ,” she replied – if she was going to get stuck with a stupid nickname, so would he.


	2. "Kurshi"

“...hey, Kurshi can I ask you something?,” she glanced over to where the Mirialan was behind a datapad he’d propped up so he could read it while laying his head on his arm that was in turn stretched out across the width of the table.

“Hm?” he didn’t look up, mostly distracted with trying to tackle the material in the assignment. A lot of the reading was stuff she’d read before, but for the green skinned alien Imperial protocol was all new and something he’d been struggling under. 

“You’re pretty good with a vibroknife right?”

“So-so, I suppose. Better than you are anyways,” he answered without looking up.

“I know that - I was wondering if you’d be open to a trade. I help you, you help me.”

He set the datapad down finally and narrowed his gaze at her instead of the words detailing etiquette. (No wonder he looked like he  _ wanted _ to stab his eyes out, that was not the topic she’d offer to tutor him in  _ that _ wasn’t her forte.) The expression was his calculating one that was accessing whether she was an enemy or not, the one that he usually hid behind a smile but had since stopped bothering to hide from her.

“You’re a sniper, you don’t need to be good at knife work.”

“I’m a female alien agent, and I can pretty up well enough, you know  _ exactly _ what my handlers will use me for,” her tone was flat - if the entire job description was just shooting people she’d be fine but she wasn’t sure what to think of the seduction games. “Not all my targets will be kept at a scope’s distance from me.”

She could see him debate it before nodding, “And you want me to drill with you to improve your knife work, okay. I can do that. But what am I getting out of this, Red?”

Atin grinned - somehow she doubted even a lifetime in Imperial Intelligence would cure Aydin Olasee of being the sort of person that just  _ cared _ . Try as he might to play up the role of uncouth and selfish he’d do better here in a place that gave him a purpose that he could justify as helping people - serving something larger than himself - than he ever would have as a criminal.

“You need help with your accents, Kurshi. I’ll help you get the Kaasi one down and learn to switch easier.”

“...alright, you have a deal - but one more condition.”

“What?”

“Why  _ Kurshi _ of all nicknames?”

She gave a slight shrug, “Seemed like a good idea at the time, I mean you’re kinda tall and you’re  _ green _ . I thought that was kind of obvious. And  _ yes _ I will still ‘accidentally’ shoot you if you start making wood jokes.”

He seemed to consider it, “Well then, go get changed and we can make like a me and leaf.” 

She groaned but stood, going to get her practice gear - if he was going to start making jokes like  _ that _ at least the motivation to try to stab him would be easy to find.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "Kurshi" which is the nickname that Atin gave Aydin as revenge for him always calling her "Red" means "tree" in Mando'a.
> 
> Aydin doesn't actually speak Mando'a apart from insults but he recognized it enough to be able to look up the meaning at some point between "Red & Green" and this scene.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! Comments and kudos are adored!
> 
> This is a side project that popped up on me by surprise, my main focus writing-wise is still over on "Starbound" so this will probably be even slower to update than any of the other stuff. Also while all the stories will follow their training, early days in Intelligence I /may/ not write them in order.
> 
> I’d like to write more about the “Black Dogs” training squad, potentially with cameos from other people’s agents. Keeping in mind I have no military background so all of this may not make any sense to anyone who actually does.
> 
> If you're interested in seeing your character in my version of the SWTOR world just pop me a message on my tumblr (aly-the-writer).


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